Feeding the front lines, one duck confit at a time

In this Friday, March 27, 2020, photo, Nightbird Restaurant chef and owner Kim Alter, left, mimicks giving a hug to nurse practitioner Sydney Gressel, center, and patient care technician Matt Phillips after delivering dinner to them at University of California at San Francisco Benioff Children’s Hospital in San Francisco. A group of tech-savvy, entrepreneurial San Francisco friends wanted to help two groups devastated by the coronavirus pandemic. They came up with a plan that involved soliciting donations, tapping friends in the restaurant world and getting San Francisco hospitals to accept free food cooked up by some of the city’s top chefs. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — On a break from the front lines, nurse practitioner Gabe Westhemier tucked into a plate of duck confit, the work of one of the city’s celebrity chefs. (“It was wonderful.”)

Meanwhile, at another San Francisco emergency room, nurse Liz Sanderson still savors a sea salt caramel bread pudding from another posh eatery. (“It was possibly the best thing I have ever eaten.”)

The best of foods is being sampled in the worst of times by the most besieged of heroes — all thanks to a group of San Francisco friends who had the idea of helping both local restaurants that need customers, and health care workers who need nourishment during their long, stressful shifts.

They sought donations and started small, with one restaurant and one hospital. Two weeks later, 42 restaurants — among them some of the city’s finest — are churning out hundreds of meals a day to feed clinicians in emergency rooms and ICUs at San Francisco’s six biggest hospitals.

They have so far raised over $350,000 and have delivered about 5,000 meals, with funding for thousands more. And a newly formed network, aptly named Frontline Foods,has linked up with similar projects in more than a dozen cities. It’s also in touch with groups like Help Feed the Frontline LA to the south, to ensure they don’t double deliver to the same hospital.

The original idea was born March 12 in a text message exchange between entrepreneur Frank Barbieri and his friend Sydney Gressel, an emergency room nurse at UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay.

Barbieri knew Gressel was working double shifts in the battle against COVID-19, and texted: “What can I do to help?”

“I suggested he could buy us dinner,” Gressel said. “He took it to the next level.”

Ryan Sarver, a tech-savvy venture capitalist, tapped contacts in the restaurant world and helped solicit donations, initially for $1,000 that would fund 50 meals for health care workers priced at $20 each. Now smaller donations can be made. The money goes straight to the restaurants.

“We tell them you’ve got $20 to spend and we need a well-balanced, healthy meal — a starch, protein and vegetable — that is going to sustain these people,” said Sarver.

That $20 has to cover the cost of food and delivery, but many chefs have been personally delivering their own food, after spending the day cooking and packing it into hundreds of individual boxes.

Chef Kim Alter, who usually charges about $150 for a meal at Nightbird, her acclaimed San Francisco restaurant, has been donning mask and gloves — in the kitchen and when she pulls her car up to hospitals to deliver her meals.

“People are afraid of going to a hospital. I feel like it’s my responsibility to do it,” said Alter.

Nightbird, known for its 10-course tasting menus, doesn’t do take-out so effectively lost all business when San Francisco went into a lockdown. Alter says now she can keep her staff employed.

“We try to make everything beautiful,” she said. One of her early meals included flowers and microgreens still in her restaurant’s refrigerator, so “their salads had $100 worth of flowers on it.”

That the meals are appreciated is an understatement.

“It puts a smile on my face for sure,” said nurse Sanderson, “and it feels like everyone is supporting us. It makes me want to work even harder.”

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While nonstop global news about the effects of the coronavirus has become commonplace, so, too, are the stories about the kindness of strangers and individuals who have sacrificed for others. “One Good Thing” is an AP continuing series reflecting these acts of kindness.

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